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Amid school changes, giving voice to busing's past

By Bridget Murphy Associated Press

Posted:
04/07/2013 08:15:20 PM MDT

Updated:
04/07/2013 08:16:11 PM MDT

Click photo to enlarge

In this March 28, 2013 photo, Ginnette Powell, left, and her friend Jonnelle Seigler, both of Boston, fist bump during a chance meeting in front of the UP Academy Charter School in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. Powell was bussed to the predominantly white neighborhood almost 40 years ago to attend school at what was Patrick Gavin Middle School. She said will never forget riding the school bus as protesters hurled bricks at it. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

BOSTON -- Last fall, Ginnette Powell traveled from her home in Boston's Dorchester section to her old middle school in South Boston -- a journey of just two miles, but one that covered a huge emotional distance. Finally, she was able to leave the painful past behind.

Powell endured the explosive battle over desegregation in Boston in the 1970s. Tears come to her eyes when she talks about how it took her decades to return to the place where she never felt safe as an African-American seventh-grader.

"It was scary because of what you were going into, getting bricks thrown at your bus. I remember the bus windows being broken," said Powell, now 48.

Nearly four decades later, Powell's native city also is still working to move forward from the legacy of the school busing crisis. Last year, Mayor Thomas Menino created an advisory group whose aim was to work toward putting students back in neighborhood schools. And last month, school officials agreed to do away with the last vestiges of the desegregation-based school assignment system, beginning in 2014.

But raw feelings remain from that divisive time. And to explore and mend the divisions, the nonprofit Union of Minority Neighborhoods has been holding public story circles across Boston where participants like Powell can open up about their own experiences.

Organizers hope the airing of voices will help people of different races and economic classes learn from the city's busing past so they can fight together for access to quality schools for all students.

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Project director Donna Bivens said the exercises are designed to be about listening and discussing, but not judging each other's stories.

"I think that we can't move forward, looking at how to improve our schools and access to our schools without looking at how the past impacted the present," said Elaine Ng, executive director of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, which hosted the story circle where Powell described her visit back to her old school.

The uproar started in 1974, when a federal judge imposed busing after a lawsuit claimed black students were getting lower-quality education than children who attended mostly white schools. Black students were bused to schools in white areas, and white students went to black neighborhoods. The National Guard was called in amid demonstrations and riots; school buses got police escorts.

The unrest continued for years. In 1976, a news photographer caught a white teenager attempting to spear a black man with an American flag during a busing protest outside City Hall. In 1979, 15-year-old black football player Darryl Williams was left paralyzed by a white sniper's bullet during a high school game.

Alexander Lynn, a 60-year-old African-American, was a young teacher at the beginning of the busing crisis. He views the busing conflict as a struggle between people of different classes, not just races, and said he had the protection of whites as he lobbied for unions in South Boston in the same era.

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